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richardhutnik on 12 June 2012
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Aldro said:
richardhutnik said:
Aldro said:

Heavy Rain is just one of many new games that are structured like a Hollywood movie and put storytelling first and game mechanics in the other room.


Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream showed up Beyond: Two Souls at E3. David Cage was clear to emphasize that the game was an interactive thriller with cinematic qualities. He had even hired the protagonist from the movie Juno, which portrays the adventure protagonist, including mapping of Ellen Page's face, mouth movements and body language. Cage in the past, like Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, talks about how he does not really like games, but has always striven to become a film director instead.

Anyone here want to argue this is a good thing?  Can I suggest we end the farce of calling them "games" when the creators of them don't like games?

Either go make movies, or push for your craft to be called something else.  And let's end this pretending they are doing games.  They aren't doing games.  Again, all this reminds me once more of what I am saying, that in the videogame industry, there is a secret longing on individuals on it, to really want to make movies.  You actually see this appeal to do movies, in the Angry Video Game Nerd, and also the likes of the Happy Console Gamer, who have this secret drive to want to be film makers.

I too, find that alarming. But then again.. MGS is one of my favorite franchises and Heavy Rain was also fucking superb.

So maybe I dislike games too? Haha nah, but I'm glad there is a variety of games that all offer a different experience.

Do you like movies, TV and books?  It is possible to like things more than games.  I am thinking all this gets labelled "games" because it enables funding.  Because Angry Birds is successful, by throwing it into a genre called "games" you then would be able to get a venture captialist to fund your work of interactive fiction, because, gee, look at all that money there (nevermind it isn't the same thing).  These investers are so clueless, they turn to the likes of Michael Pachter to tell them what is or is not worth putting money into.  Yes, this guy who is as poor as he is at predicting the future, is who the guys with money look to.  The other side also happens, of something coming out, doing well, and it gets a ton of clones, because it sold.  No one has a grasp of what works as games, who has the money to fund things.  Big disconnect here.  It is a disconnect seen with movies to, where I am seeing a bunch of knockoffs of the movie Battleship, because apparently someone thought that would be a big blockbuster.  Mmm, k.  Big clueless money, big with cluelessness and big with money.

A core of the issues I have with this (I risk CGI-Quality jumping in here now about this also) is that those doing videogames, as a rule, are not good storytellers.  Oh, it is getting better, but still doesn't line up with what you get in other mediums.  Secondarily, the production costs are going through the roof, and there is an entire spin of, "Gee, it isn't too bad.  Look, you get X hours of gameplay out of this $60 product".  And the entire industry rests on very thin margins, driven even more by hits, than even the movie industry.